Evaluation Hub

Tony Clark (role within MoE) is standing in front of a yellow wall with inspiring illustrative text.

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Tony Clark: Kia ora I’m Tony and I’m part of the team behind Evaluation Hub. We created this site to help you apply evaluative thinking when you’re undertaking a new project, programme, policy or any initiative. In this introduction we will talk about why we need evaluative thinking, what it is, and the resources you can access from this site.

So why use evaluative thinking? We know we have persistent under achievement and poor life outcomes for priority groups in our education system.

Tony walks through a co-working space speaking towards the camera.

Tony Clark: The first is that we are not clear enough in setting out our desired outcomes and how our actions and resources are meant to achieve them. The second part is that we fail to consistently apply a framework for continuous improvement. We are not continually evaluating activities to see whether or not what we are doing is working. And then after we find out, we are not always committing to action.

Jake Wills walks through a co-working space speaking towards the camera.

Jake Wills: So we created the Evaluation hub, we wanted to make it easy to access tools and resources that make evaluative thinking that much easier. But what do we mean by Evaluative Thinking. We mean the state of mind that encourages reflective practice. It’s the habit of using good evidence to make sound judgments.

Jake works together with other Evaluation team members in a meeting room in the co-working space, Creative HQ in Wellington.

Jake writing on sticky notes in Creative HQ Wellington co-working space meeting room with other team members.

Jake Wills: Evaluative thinking is more than just collecting and collating data and involves constantly reflecting, questioning and using this to make informed decisions.

Jake talks in front of a wooden background.

Jake Wills: Evaluative thinking challenges us to be continually learning, reflecting and improving. It is the state of mind that encourages continual improvement. Like most things, the more you practice the better you get. We call this the small ‘e’ evaluation. The big ‘E’ Evaluation is the formal evaluation about finding out the impact of your project, programme or initiative.

Matilde Figuracion is standing outside in front of the beehive in Wellington

Matilde Figuracion: On this website you’ll find our Theory of Change page which will help you to understand how and why a desired change is expected to come about. It is a roadmap to get you from here to where you want to go. The Commissioning Page will help you to design a simple, pragmatic process and template around commissioning that teams can adapt and use as needed. Good commissioning is expected to provide greater clarity on what is expected by when, reduce needless rework and avoid duplication of effort.

Matilde is placing sticky notes on the window inside the Ministry of Education

Matilde Figuracion: We have champions .. people like us who are trained to help you through the process.

Matilde Figuracion is standing outside in front of the beehive in Wellington

Matilde Figuracion: The Evaluative Thinking Questions is a great tool to embed evaluative thinking from the get-go. It can be used when you Plan, Do and Review your project, programme or any initiative.

Tony Clark is standing in front of a yellow wall with inspiring illustrative text.

Tony Clark: So if you have a policy, project, programme or an initiative, these tools combined will help you ensure that your project is moving towards the goal you’ve set, so you can create the tangible impact your work intended. Welcome to the site.

Video title page displays: Brought to you by the Ministry of Education

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